I've lost 2 of 9 Longspine Cardinal Fish

jsvand5 · Apr 24, 2019

I’d just feed them up for a few days and see how they look. These things are really fragile at first. Even just netting them for dips can cause problems for them.

Pdash · Apr 25, 2019

No change or slightly better on the fin damage/white spot. They are now actively eating medicated food, not quite as strongly as the baby brine but pretty close. They are all still pretty slim, so I'm going to keep feeding them as consistently as I can. Thanks for the help @Frtdrmrose7 , I'll give updates if I see a turn for the worse or alternatively when I move them over to the DT.

blitzkragz · Apr 25, 2019

These Threadfin/Longspine cardinals are driving me crazy. I got a batch of 13 through 14 days of copper, and after transferring them to a sterile tank I am on day 5 of that and I have lost 2 so far.

I have been feeding small amounts of mysis several times a day, and when feeding, 7 of them are ravenous and active, and 4 of them aren't eating at all and stay at the bottom of the tank. They visually look perfectly fine. Its almost the same story as what happened to the Coral Beauty that was in the same batch (posted abut that here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-beauty-qt-post-mortem.586682/ ) They've made it through copper, so can rule out anything that copper would have already cleared.

When I was buying all the meds I read about on R2R that might needed for QT, I picked up some NFG that I heard good things about. So today I added a heater, airstone, and dosed NFG into a 5 gallon bucket and moved the 4 non-eaters into it. Tomorrow I have an order of live brine shrimp arriving from www.livebrineshrimp.com and I pray that they eat, and that the NFG is going to do something for them. I just don't know what else to do.

Pdash · Apr 25, 2019

blitzkragz said:
These Threadfin/Longspine cardinals are driving me crazy. I got a batch of 13 through 14 days of copper, and after transferring them to a sterile tank I am on day 5 of that and I have lost 2 so far.

I have been feeding small amounts of mysis several times a day, and when feeding, 7 of them are ravenous and active, and 4 of them aren't eating at all and stay at the bottom of the tank. They visually look perfectly fine. Its almost the same story as what happened to the Coral Beauty that was in the same batch (posted abut that here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-beauty-qt-post-mortem.586682/ ) They've made it through copper, so can rule out anything that copper would have already cleared.

When I was buying all the meds I read about on R2R that might needed for QT, I picked up some NFG that I heard good things about. So today I added a heater, airstone, and dosed NFG into a 5 gallon bucket and moved the 4 non-eaters into it. Tomorrow I have an order of live brine shrimp arriving from www.livebrineshrimp.com and I pray that they eat, and that the NFG is going to do something for them. I just don't know what else to do.

Did you feed medicated food yet for internal parasites? (Edit: never mind, I took a look at the other thread) A bad infestation in some of them could be affecting appetite. Pretty much all mine came in with internal parasites.

blitzkragz · Apr 25, 2019

Pdash said:
Did you feed medicated food yet for internal parasites? (Edit: never mind, I took a look at the other thread) A bad infestation in some of them could be affecting appetite. Pretty much all mine came in with internal parasites.

Yes, they were all fed GC+focus+mysis+selcon for the 14 days of copper. I haven't seen any white stringy poop from any of them. Now I am feeding just plain mysis. So I just fed the tank, 7 went nuts eating, 4 stayed together at the bottom (even ignoring food that would float down into their face), and I netted just those 4 to try putting them in NFG.

vetteguy53081 · Apr 25, 2019

Feed sparingly and keep eye on water temp, salinity and overall breathing ( should not be labored breathing)

jsvand5 · Apr 25, 2019

blitzkragz said:
Yes, they were all fed GC+focus+mysis+selcon for the 14 days of copper. I haven't seen any white stringy poop from any of them. Now I am feeding just plain mysis. So I just fed the tank, 7 went nuts eating, 4 stayed together at the bottom (even ignoring food that would float down into their face), and I netted just those 4 to try putting them in NFG.

Try mixing in live brine (I use adult brine)
with the mysis to get the sluggish ones eating. Eventually they’ll take the mysis as well.

blitzkragz · Apr 25, 2019

jsvand5 said:
Try mixing in live brine (I use adult brine)
with the mysis to get the sluggish ones eating. Eventually they’ll take the mysis as well.

I have 1/4lb of live adult brine arriving from livebrineshrimp.com tomorrow, in a last ditch attempt to get these guys eating. Where do you get/maintain your live brine? Do you culture them yourself?

jsvand5 · Apr 25, 2019

blitzkragz said:
I have 1/4lb of live adult brine arriving from livebrineshrimp.com tomorrow, in a last ditch attempt to get these guys eating. Where do you get/maintain your live brine? Do you culture them yourself?

My LFS sells them. I use food from seahorsesource.com to enrich them but I only use them for new arrivals

blitzkragz · Apr 26, 2019

I lost one of the 4 I had in NFG last night. Today the live brine shrimp arrived, and one out of the remaining 3 ate some! The other two though, no interest at all. I am posting some pictures of the two non-eaters I have in NFG right now, if anyone notices anything that would be better done with them than NFG, or if that is my best bet.

Pdash · Apr 26, 2019

blitzkragz said:
I lost one of the 4 I had in NFG last night. Today the live brine shrimp arrived, and one out of the remaining 3 ate some! The other two though, no interest at all. I am posting some pictures of the two non-eaters I have in NFG right now, if anyone notices anything that would be better done with them than NFG, or if that is my best bet.

Your fin damage looks pretty similar to one of mine, all 6 of my remaining cardinals are taking live brine and frozen food now thankfully.

Pdash · Apr 28, 2019

Well, all 6 remaining fish are doing well, the fin damage on my worst off cardinal is looking quite a bit better, and the white stuff that went along with it is almost completely gone. I did a 25% water change yesterday and dosed the last round of GC. I've been feeding maybe 1-2 drops of baby brine mixed with a small piece of medicated frozen food about 3-5 times a day, netting out any uneaten. They seem pretty uninterested in any food that isn't very small. I've also been pulsing a beefier power head while they are eating, and that seems to stimulate a pretty robust feeding response. I'm actually optimistic I won't lose any more of them.

blitzkragz · Apr 29, 2019

Pdash said:
Well, all 6 remaining fish are doing well, the fin damage on my worst off cardinal is looking quite a bit better, and the white stuff that went along with it is almost completely gone. I did a 25% water change yesterday and dosed the last round of GC. I've been feeding maybe 1-2 drops of baby brine mixed with a small piece of medicated frozen food about 3-5 times a day, netting out any uneaten. They seem pretty uninterested in any food that isn't very small. I've also been pulsing a beefier power head while they are eating, and that seems to stimulate a pretty robust feeding response. I'm actually optimistic I won't lose any more of them.

It is good to hear that you were able to get them going again after they stop eating, at least we know it is possible! I haven't had a single success doing that. I lost all 4 of the non-eaters this weekend, despite the live brine shrimp, but the 7 that graduated strong from QT I added as the first members of my DT. They seem to be loving it there!

I just did a tally and I have ordered a total of 28 of these since Jan 1, and only have 9 of those left. The ones that made it past the shipping and first couple days, would just stop eating one by one, then often times start breathing heavy and within a day be dead.

jsvand5 · Apr 29, 2019

blitzkragz said:
It is good to hear that you were able to get them going again after they stop eating, at least we know it is possible! I haven't had a single success doing that. I lost all 4 of the non-eaters this weekend, despite the live brine shrimp, but the 7 that graduated strong from QT I added as the first members of my DT. They seem to be loving it there!

I just did a tally and I have ordered a total of 28 of these since Jan 1, and only have 9 of those left. The ones that made it past the shipping and first couple days, would just stop eating one by one, then often times start breathing heavy and within a day be dead.

Try to grab some from DD next time they put a trio up. I called them when they had a trip up for sale and they sold me six others that were due to post for sale the next day. Better than having to only get 3 at a time.

Pdash · May 1, 2019

The one with the damaged fin no longer has any white fluff on him, and the piece out of his tail fin is healing very well. It's actually hard to see it at all. To my eyes the fish still look painfully thin, and there is still white stringy poop. I'm now feeding 1/2 scoop metro, 1/2 fenbendazole, 1 scoop focus, 4 drops selcon, 2 drops garlic guard, 3 small cubes of frozen baby brine. Few drops of the frozen mix and a drop of live baby brine as many times a day as I can. They just accept the small foods much much better. Although I'm still trying some larger foods (and other small foods), and I did get a decent response today out of at least one of them with larger food. So hopefully they transition to small mysis soon. They are considerably less shy now, but still don't like the camera much.